A top Democratic lawmaker and a former deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright, called Tuesday on the Obama administration to make public more information about its top-secret targeted killing program amid questions about the legality and effectiveness of hundreds of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere. "More transparency is needed to maintain the support of the American people and the international community" for drone strikes, said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a key Obama ally and the chairman of the Constitution subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The White House refused to send a witness to the Senate's hearing on the issue despite President Barack Obama's vow to be more forthcoming about the counterterrorism weapon.

New York

Bin Laden secretary sentenced to life

A former personal secretary to Osama bin Laden got a strong rebuke from a judge on Tuesday as he was sentenced to life in prison for a second time after claiming the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Sandy were "God's punishment" for injustice by the United States against him and others.

"You, sir, in my judgment, are a committed terrorist who has betrayed his country," U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan told Wadih El-Hage after listening to the claims of the Lebanese-born man who became a U.S. citizen.

El-Hage, 52, said he was treated unjustly before his 2001 conviction in the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

He was convicted of conspiracy and other charges and was sentenced to life in prison. A federal appeals court ordered a resentencing after he argued that the federal sentencing guidelines under which he was sentenced were no longer mandatory.

New York

Petraeus will be college professor

Former CIA director David Petraeus has been named a visiting professor for public policy at Macaulay Honors College at City University of New York, the school said Tuesday. He starts Aug. 1.

Petraeus has a doctorate from Princeton University and has written widely on international relations, military strategy and national security issues. He was a hero of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He left the CIA in November after it was uncovered he'd had an affair with his biographer.